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DOI 10.1007/s11276-016-1233-z
Visible light communications heterogeneous network
(VLC-HetNet): new model and protocols for mobile scenario
Xu Bao1 • Jisheng Dai2,3 • Xiaorong Zhu3,4
 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Abstract In order to resolve the crowded radio spectrum
of wireless communication systems, visible light commu-
nications (VLC), which uses a vast unregulated and free
light spectrum, has emerged to be a viable solution.
However, duplex communication, user mobility, multi-user
access and transmission mechanisms are becoming chal-
lenging tasks in VLC network. In this article, we propose a
new VLC heterogeneous network (VLC-HetNet) model
which merges VLC and radio frequency (RF) network.
VLC channel is only used for downlink transmission, while
RF channels are served for uplinks in any situation, or for
downlinks only without VLC hotspots coverage. New VLC
frame, multi-user access mechanism, horizontal and verti-
cal handover protocols are presented to support the VLC-
HetNet model, especially for solving the problems at multi-
user mobility scenario. Simulation results show improve-
ments in capacity performance of the VLC-HetNet, when
compared to RF system. Besides, the average vertical
handover number and VLC downlink dwelling time ratio
have been analysed.
& Xu Bao
xbao@ujs.edu.cn
1
School of Computer and Communications Engineering,
Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
2
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Jiangsu
University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
3 exploited for high rate transmission and system capacity.
National Mobile Communications Research Laboratory,
Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
4 modulation and demodulation techniques are implemented
Wireless Communication Key Laboratory of Jiangsu
Province, Nanjing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Nanjing 210003, China
Keywords Visible light communications 
Heterogeneous network  Handover protocol
1 Introduction
Recent proliferation of wireless technologies and choices
available to user applications have triggered a tremendous
wireless demand, and the global mobile data traffic will
increase 13-fold between 2012 and 2017 [1]. Therefore,
wireless network providers face an enormous challenge to
increase their network capacity, in order to cope with the
increasing traffic demand. However, this pushes the radio
frequency (RF)-based wireless technologies to their limits,
and the spectrum allocation charts show that most of the
spectrum is already allocated under license [2]. Visible
light communications (VLC) utilize off-the-shelf light
emitting diodes (LEDs) as signal transmitters and off-the-
shelf p-intrinsic-n (PIN) photodiodes (PDs) or avalanche
photo-diodes (APDs) as signal receivers. Furthermore,
VLC uses light in the wavelength interval of 375–780 nm,
and it is emerging as a solution to overcome the crowded
radio spectrum for wireless communication systems.
VLC has several advantages over RF communications.
Firstly, it uses a vast unregulated and free spectrum without
electromagnetic interference to support data communica-
tion and illumination in indoor environments where new
energy-efficient LED materials and devices will replace old
incandescent and fluorescent lighting [3]. Due to the
broader spectral bands in the optical domain, VLC could be
Secondly, the installation of VLC is low cost. The intensity
in low cost LED bulbs as VLC transmitter and photodiode
as VLC receiver (RX). Besides, powerline communication
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system, the backup network of VLC, can utilize the
existing power grid rather than establishing a new network.
Therefore, it is much more economical than the traditional
wireless network which is backed up with the fiber optical
communication system. Thirdly, the optical signal cannot
penetrate opaque obstacle and hence, spatial confinement
of the light beams provides inherent security eliminating
interception or eavesdropping. Lastly, VLC does not have
the electromagnetic compatibility problem, and it does not
pose any health risk and are therefore safe for most
applications.
Although VLC has several superiorities over RF system
at indoor scenarios, some challenging tasks are still needed
to be resolved. Firstly, VLC using illumination sources is
naturally suited to broadcast applications, while providing
an optical uplink to the distributed transmitter structures
can be problematic [4–6]. Because it will interfere with the
downlink signal and the receiver must point to the direction
of the VLC transmitter even when the mobile terminals
(MT) move. Infrared technologies are usually for uplink
transmission [3, 7–9], but it can be easily blocked. Sec-
ondly, optical channel is easily influenced by the blockage
of objects and suffers from shadowing. As a result, it is
necessary to have link recovery as well as handover
mechanisms at mobile scenarios [10, 11]. Thirdly, the VLC
coverage is constrained within the opaque space which is
different from the characteristics of RF. So the seamless
coverage can be problematic.
In order to overcome the disadvantages of VLC tech-
nology, the combination schemes of VLC and RF are
presented in recent literature sources under indoor scenar-
ios. Hou and O’Brien [11] proposed a fuzzy-logic-based
decision-making algorithm for vertical handover in the
integrated system of optical wireless and RF technologies.
In this system, the optical link is subject to blocking, and
depending on the duration of the blocking, the system
performs a vertical handover to an RF LAN. Rahaim et al.
[12] proposed an indoor hybrid system that integrates WiFi
and VLC luminaries in which VLC is only used for
broadcasting. A simplified vertical handover mechanism
was presented and the downlink throughput have been
analysed. However, user mobility has not been considered.
Chowdhury and Katz [13] analysed the performances of
hybrid wireless local area network (WLAN)-VLC hotspot
considering data download on moving scenario, while
detailed access, horizontal and vertical handover protocols
were not proposed. For a big house with multiple rooms,
[14] introduced a VLC network coordinator, which is
defined by IEEE Standard 802.15.7, for providing the bi-
directional interfaces between uplink Wi-Fi access and
downlink LED transmission. In [14], handover has been
only used when the users are crossing different rooms.
However, due to the limited coverage of one LED lamp,
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horizontal or vertical handover in one room is necessary
especially when multiple users transmit or receive data via
VLC.
Although the total gain of indoor VLC channel consists
of line-of-sight (LOS) and diffuse gains, the optical power
by first order reflections is about more than 100 dB less
than the path loss of the LOS transmission [15–17]. Since
the path loss of higher order reflections is even larger, the
effects of the diffuse paths can be neglected. Due to the
VLC channel characteristics, every LED bulb has a limited
coverage and the overlapped areas among different adja-
cent ones are also limited. As a result, under user mobility
scenario, VLC transmitters have to locate the MTs for
downlink transmissions. However, VLC uplink channels
may not exist for providing any location feedback. Due to
that, the user access mechanism of VLC network must
provide uplink channels for access requests and feedbacks,
while offering upper layer support for localizing MTs and
coordination between VLC and RF networks. As for the
handover issue, the larger overlapping area between cells
allows the network elements enough time to initiate and
complete it successfully in traditional RF networks (e.g.,
GSM, UMTS etc.). Nevertheless, VLC is not the same. The
small overlapping area requires the short handover delay.
Another problem of VLC handover is the intermittent
shadowing. Objects such as furniture can cause shadowing,
and also human wandering can block signal. Signal to noise
ratio (SNR) can drop and rise up again in a few centime-
tres. The frequent handovers may probably terminate the
connections or delay the data transmission.
In order to overcome the problems mentioned above
under mobile scenarios, we propose an indoor heteroge-
neous network (HetNet) with the combination of VLC and
RF. The HetNet contains multiple LED bulbs covering the
indoor downlink transmission, and one VLC control center
(VLC-CC) to manage the coordination between RF base
station (BS) and VLC, also allocates resources for multiple
accessing MTs. In this paper, we firstly design a VLC
frame and propose a new access mechanism for multiple
MTs. Secondly, a novel handover scheme named as
dynamic hybrid handover protocol (DHHO) is presented,
which is combined with horizontal and vertical handover
mechanisms accounting for indoor moving seamlessly.
Thirdly, we evaluate the system capacity, average vertical
handover number and VLC downlink dwelling time ratio
(the ratio between downlink data transmission in VLC
network and the total downlink transmission time) com-
pared with the traditional immediate vertical handover
(IVHO) scheme [11].
The remainder of this paper is outlined as follows. In
Sect. 2, we propose a new VLC-HetNet framework and
give the network settings. Section 3 illustrates the VLC
frame and multiple user access protocol. Section 4
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introduces the proposed DHHO scheme which is combined
with horizontal handover protocol among adjacent VLC
hotspots and vertical handover protocol from VLC to RF or
RF to VLC network. In Sect. 5, we simulate the network
capacity, handover performance and VLC dwelling time
ratio. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Sect. 6.
2 Network deployment
In terms of network deployment, the indoor VLC-HetNet
contains RF-BS, VLC-CC, LED bulbs and MTs as shown
in Fig. 1. RF-BS provides the RF signal coverage and the
uplink sub-channels for MTs of the whole area. MTs access
to the VLC-HetNet successfully only if they are accepted
by the RF-BS. VLC-CC connects to the LED bulbs which
are installed at indoor scenarios via powerline, it is aware
of the LED bulbs’ locations in the room and responsible for
the resource allocations of multiple MTs. Every LED bulb
is mounted on the ceiling of the room, contains an array of
LEDs as transmitters using white light and for illumination.
It has a unique ID which can be used to locate MTs by
VLC-CC. The details will be shown in Sect. 3. The VLC
transmitter (LED bulb) uses a Lambertian optical source, of
which the brightness to an observer is the same regardless
of the observer’s angle of view [18]. As a result, the pro-
jection on the ground can be considered as a circle and the
coverage area of LED bulb is called as ‘‘hotspot’’ in this
paper. VLC link is exclusively used for rapid downlink
transmission. MTs are equipped with two kinds of trans-
ceivers, one for RF and the other is for light detection.
The key problems of establishing this VLC-HetNet are
to solve access and handover issues. As for the access
mechanism, the MT has to apply for uplink channels from
RF-BS due to the unidirectional VLC link. Prior to
downlink transmission, VLC-CC has to find out the serving
Fig. 1 VLC-HetNet model
LED
hotspot of the MT and distribute the downlink contents to
it. The optical channel conditions that are detected by the
MT are reported to the VLC-CC via RF-BS relay.
According to that, VLC-CC can allocate time resources for
the downlink transmissions of the MT. The issues of
localizing MT and the coordination mechanism between
VLC and RF-BS are key challenges in the access protocol.
As for the handover issue, the MT may move across
different hotspots and it triggers the horizontal handover.
However, the VLC detector cannot receive VLC signal
when MT enters into the overlapped area of adjacent hot-
spots due to the interference. The vertical handover
depends on the duration of staying in the overlapped area.
In order to keep the services continuous when the MT is
moving at indoor scenarios, a novel protocol combined
with horizontal and vertical handover mechanisms must be
proposed. Details are discussed in Sect. 4.
3 VLC frame and access protocol
The VLC frame used for LED downlink transmission is
shown in Fig. 2(a). It is broadcasted periodically and
contains L slots. Every slot in the frame contains the
‘‘training sequence’’ which is used for synchronization and
channel estimation, the ‘‘header’’ which provides details on
the frame such as the frame length, modulation and coding
scheme, and the data payload frame, the ‘‘resource allo-
cation information’’ which gives the downlink transmission
slots allocation to the target MT, the ‘‘LED ID’’ which
identifies the serving hotspot (coverage area of the LED
bulb) for MT, the ‘‘MT ID’’ which serves for finding the
right receiving MT, and the ‘‘downlink data’’ used for
downlink transmission. If an MT enters into the overlapped
area of adjacent hotspots, the received ‘‘LED ID’’ will be
the combinations of different IDs from adjacent hotspots,
RF-BS VLC-CC
RF link
VLC link
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Fig. 2 a VLC frame, b one Frame i-1 Frame i

sample of conflicting pattern
Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot L Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot L

Training
Header Resource allocation LED ID MT ID Downlink data
sequence

(a)

Training Resource
Header LED ID MT ID Downlink data
sequence allocation

ID of LEDi

ID of LEDj

Conflicting pattern

PPM cycle
(b)

which is named as ‘‘conflicting pattern’’ here. However, the
MT can be located via the ‘‘conflicting pattern’’ if it is
unique. A sample of the LED ‘‘conflicting pattern’’ is
shown in Fig. 2(b). Therefore, an ID coding rule for
localizing purpose is designed as follows. First, we define
the LED ID set as C = {Ci, i = 1, 2, …} satisfying
Ci þ Cj 62 C, where Ci is the ID of the i-th LED, Cj is the
adjacent ID set of the i-th LED. Second, in order to resist
reception error, the ID is designed as Ci ¼ max
min8Ck 2C d½ðCi þ Cj Þ  Ck , where d [*] denotes the
Euclidean distance. This criterion is to maximize the
minimum Euclidean distance between the one in the ID set
and the overlapped combination ID.
Based on the above, the accessing mechanism in Fig. 3
is as follows:
1. The MT sends accessing requests to RF-BS via RF
link.
2. If RF-BS has some available spectrum resources, it
will allocate the uplink channels for the MT and send
feedbacks.
3. RF-BS informs the VLC-CC that it has accepted the
accessing events of the MT.
4. The VLC receiver of the MT has detected the
downlink VLC frame and estimated the optical chan-
nel conditions via ‘‘training sequence’’, also decoded
the unique ID segment via the received ‘‘LED ID’’.
The MT reports this information to RF-BS via RF.
5. Because all the uplinks are RF channels, there are no
direct connections from the MT to VLC-CC. So, the
RF-BS is responsible for relaying the channel condi-
tions and the ID segments to VLC-CC.
6. Based on the ID encoding algorithm discussed above,
the VLC-CC can locate the MT via the ID segment. It
means that VLC-CC can find the serving hotspot of the
MT and get ready for its VLC downlink transmission.
If the MT is on the overlapped area, the ID segment is
the unique ‘‘conflicting pattern’’. Because of the
interference, the handover event may be triggered at
this moment and it will be discussed in detail in
Sect. 4.

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Fig. 3 Access protocols in

VLC-HetNet

MT Destination hotspot VLC-CC RF-BS

Broadcast VLC frame

1. Accessing request and uplink channel request

2. Acknowledgement and uplink channels allocation

3. Access confirmation

4. Report the optical channel condition and the ID segment of hotspot

5. Relay

6. Locate the serving hotspot

by identifying the ID segment

7. Downlink channel allocation

8. Notice MT and downlink transmission

7. VLC-CC allocates the time slots for the MT.
8. The time allocation information must be transmitted on
every slot of the VLC frame.
4 Handover protocol
As mentioned above, VLC is sensitive to the blockage of
objects and suffering shadowing due to the high direc-
tionality of the optical channel. Therefore, it is necessary to
design a handover mechanism to keep the service contin-
uous. Besides, the movement of MT is another incentive to
make a handover. When the MT passes through different
hotspots, it may change the downlink transmission from
one to another, known as horizontal handover. However,
MT may change the downlink from VLC to RF and vice
versa, which is named as vertical handover. In the VLC-
HetNet, handover is the most important issue to provide the
seamless traffic and heterogeneous support. In the follow-
ing, we present a new protocol considering both horizontal
and vertical handover, as shown in Fig. 4. The suffix of the
step number in the protocol (a or b) denotes the different
branch of the decision part in the flowchart, e.g., the flow
chart of the handover protocol can be 1 ? 2 ? 3 ?
… ? 11, or 1 ? 2? … ? 5(? 6) ? a ? b ? c ?
d ? 10 ? 11 or 1 ? 2 ? … ? 5(? 6) ? a ? b ?
c ? d ? 10 ? e ? f ? g.
1. After accessing the RF network, the VLC RX of MT
keeps on detecting the optical channel. Once VLC is
detected, the MT is ready to access the VLC and
request downlink channel resources. If VLC is not
detected for a certain duration tv, the MT will apply
for downlink channels from RF network. The duration
tv is selected to avoid unnecessary handovers caused
by fading and shadowing of the optical channel.
2. The MT sets a ‘‘Timer’’ which is fit to limit the
waiting time for accessing to VLC system. It will
switch to RF network upon time-out. The value of
‘‘Timer’’ is selected to avoid frequent handover and
service termination.
3. The MT receives the broadcast VLC frame and
decodes the ‘‘LED ID’’ part to obtain the ID of
serving hotspot. Besides, the optical channel condi-
tion is estimated via ‘‘training sequence’’. This

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MT Destination hotspot VLC-CC RF-BS

1. VLC detected and N Apply for downlink channels

wait for duration? Downlink transmission
Y

2. Set Timer
3. Send ID segment and optical channel condition feedback

4. Relay

5. Is it a confliction a. Notice
pattern? Y

N
7. Allocation transmission slots 6. Slot allocation a. Notice
Y successfully? N

8. Notice MT via VLC frame

9. VLC downlink transmission

b. Inform MT that VLC downlink allocation failed

Y Apply for downlink channels

c. Timer is over?
Downlink transmission
N

d. Back to step 3 and continue

N e. Report reception failed information

10. Data reception correct?
f. Relay
Y

g. Terminate transmission and

release time slots
11. Receive until one frame
end and go back to step 1

The handover procedure can be 1 2 3 11

or 1 2 3 4 5( 6) a b c d 10 11
or 1 2 3 4 5( 6) a b c d 10 e f g

Fig. 4 DHHO scheme in VLC-HetNet

information will be sent to RF-BS via uplink ‘‘conflicting pattern’’. In this case, it transfers to step
channel. a. Otherwise, it goes to step 6.
4. As there is no direct link between VLC-CC and the
(a) The VLC-CC notices the RF-BS that it receives a
MT, the RF-BS relay the information to VLC-CC.
‘‘conflicting pattern’’ or it cannot provide enough
5. If the MT is located at the overlapped area of the
resources for the MT. Then, it goes to step b.
adjacent hotspots, the ID segment in ‘‘LED ID’’ is a

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(b) The RF-BS informs MT that VLC downlink
allocation is failed due to the interference
from the adjacent visible light channels. Then,
it goes to step c.
(c) Due to the mobility of MT, it will happen with
a high probability that the MT moves outside
of the overlapped area and it will be covered
by another hotspot before the ‘‘Timer’’
expires. As a result, if the ‘‘Timer’’ is not
expired, it goes back to step 3 and continue.
This step completes the horizontal handover.
Otherwise, the MT will apply for the downlink
channels from RF-BS and the vertical han-
dover happens.
6. If all the slots in the serving hotspot are occupied,
the VLC-CC will notice that the slot allocation has
failed. And the MT will be ready for the vertical
handover to RF network.
7. The VLC-CC allocates the time slots for the MT and
gets ready for the downlink data.
8. The VLC-CC controls the serving LED bulb to send
the slot allocation information to MT.
9. The serving LED bulb starts the rapid downlink
transmission via VLC.
10. During the VLC downlink transmission, the MT may
move outside the serving hotspot. Therefore, it is
necessary to determine whether the reception data is
correct. If yes, it goes to step 11. Otherwise, it jumps
to step e.
11. The MT receives until one frame ends and go back to
step 1.
(e) Once the MT has failed to receive data via
VLC because of entering into the overlapped
area or suffering shadowing. In this case, the
MT must notice RF-BS of the failed reception.
Then, it goes to step f.
(f) The RF-BS informs the VLC-CC the infor-
mation of failed reception. Then, it goes to
step g.
(g) VLC-CC terminates the downlink transmis-
sion and releases time slots for other MTs.
5 Simulation results and analysis
In this part, the proposed DHHO scheme is simulated in
three aspects, i.e., capacity performance, successful han-
dover number and VLC dwelling time ratio compared with
the immediate vertical handover (IVHO). For IVHO
scheme, vertical handover is immediately triggered when
VLC channel is interrupted.
5.1 Simulation model
We use Matlab to simulate the system performances and
run 10,000 independent tests for Figs. 7, 8, 9 and 10. The
simulation scenario is constructed within a hall of
20 m 9 5 m 9 6 m (long, wide and height). VLC network
with M hotspots provides the optical downlink transmis-
sion. The VLC coverage rate of the room is denoted as a,
which is defined as the ratio of the effective VLC hotspots
coverage and the overall room area. In addition, the over-
lapped area of the adjacent hotspots is not included in the
effective VLC coverage domain due to the co-channel
interference (CCI). We assume that the RF-BS covers the
room completely with a certain data rate. OFDMA is
assumed to be implemented in RF network. Besides, the
number of RF uplink and downlink channels are denoted as
Nu and Nd, respectively. The distribution of MTs is mod-
elled as a homogeneous Poisson point process (HPPP) and
it is assumed that the time between two consecutive
demands of MTs for service in the system (or inter arrive
time) is exponentially distributed [19]. We define q(x) as
the spatial density of inter arrival time in s-1 m-2, constant
in time. The larger value of q(x) means higher capacity of
the system. Because every MT sends uplink requests via
OFDMA, we model this process as a queue M/M/Nu with a
service rate l which depends on the processing rate of RF-
BS [20]. Similar to the uplink, the OFDMA downlink can
also be considered as a queue M/M/Nd with service rate l.
As for the OFDMA downlink sub-channels, only when
MTs are out of VLC hotspots coverage or fail to access to
VLC network, are OFDMA downlink sub-channels uti-
lized. The frequency response of the RF channel can be
modelled as:
H ¼ Gp Gm ð1Þ
where Gp and Gm denote the channel gain of path loss and
Rayleigh flat-fading in frequency domain, respectively.
The path loss model is described as:
d
jgp ðdÞj2 ¼ Lðd0 Þ þ 10n log10 ðdBÞ ð2Þ
d0
where gp(d) is the amplitude channel gain in the time
domain, d0 is the reference distance, d is the distance
between the transmitter and receiver. L(d0) is equal to
41.5 dB on 2 GHz, where d0 = 1 m. n is set to 1.9 at
indoor scenario [21]. jgm j2 is exponential distribution with
mean 1/c in which c is assigned to 10 dB.
The user mobility model is considered as a constant
speed of v m/s walking in a straight line through multiple
hotspots. The user movement model is shown in Fig. 5
which is a specific scenario of Fig. 1, while the receiver
held by the user is assumed to be parallel to the ceiling and
1 m height from the ground. That is to say, the receiver
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Fig. 5 User movement model Ceiling

LED LED LED

Wall
Wall

FOV
v
1m

lo Ground
Overlapped area

plane is assumed to be always parallel to the transmitting 5.2 Capacity performance

LED plane in our simulation. The distances between the
adjacent LEDs are assumed to be the same. Besides, the Figure 7 shows the maximum spatial density against dif-
maximum length of the overlapped area is denoted as lo. ferent number of downlink OFDMA sub-channels imple-
The simulation parameters and definitions are shown in menting IVHO and DHHO schemes. The maximum
Table 1. capacity of our proposed VLC-HetNet model is much
Every LED bulb has its unique ID, so as to be used for larger than the pure OFDMA network because VLC
localizing MTs. In this simulation, pulse position modu- channels could offload downlink data from the crowded
lation (PPM) is implemented in the ‘‘LED ID’’, which is OFDMA network. The VLC-HetNet could accommodate
illustrated in Fig. 6. If the detected signal at the VLC more users when Nd increases on condition that all the
receiver has more than one PPM pulse, the user must be in access requests have been successfully handled, i.e., the
the overlapped area and it can be localized by identifying number of uplink sub-channels is sufficient. It means that
the locations of the PPM pulses due to the conflicting more MTs can successfully handover to OFDMA network
pattern is unique. Therefore, it is easier for the MT to and establish OFDMA downlink sub-channels if the VLC
distinguish the overlapped area. network is interrupted or all the time slots in VLC frames
are occupied. However, the achieved maximum spatial
density decreases when Nd continues to increase. It is
because that the decreasing Nu causes the VLC-HetNet
Table 1 Simulation parameters and definitions cannot process more accessing requests from MTs and
Size of simulation scenario 20 m 9 5 m 9 6 m hence limit the system capacity. As shown in Fig. 7, Nd
(long, wide and height) which makes q obtain its maximum, decreases with L. This
Spatial density of request arrival q (s-1 m-2) is because VLC hotspots can accommodate more MTs
in unit time and area
when L increases, and more OFDMA uplink sub-channels
Number of uplink sub-channels Nu
in OFDMA network
Number of downlink sub-channels Nd Slot 1
in OFDMA network
Overlapped length of the adjacent lo = 2 m 1st LED ID
VLC hotspots Slot 2

Number of LED hotspots M=5 2nd LED ID

Ratio of downlink to uplink N = 10
packet length Slot M
Number of time slots in VLC L
downlink frame Mst LED ID

Velocity of MT movement v
Delay timing before vertical Timer Slot 1 Slot M
handover of DHHO scheme Conflicting
LED half power angle d pattern of 1st
and Mst LED
Field-of-view (FOV) semi-angle d
of the receiver
Fig. 6 LED ID in simulation

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0.4 0.4
IVHO,L=6 IVHO,v=1,L=10
DHHO,L=6 0.38 DHHO,v=1,L=10
0.35 IVHO,L=10 DHHO,v=1,L=6
DHHO, L=10 0.36 IVHO,v=1,L=6

Maximum spatial density

Maximum spatial density

0.3 OFDMA only

0.34
0.25
0.32

0.2 0.3

0.28
0.15
0.26
0.1
0.24
0.05
0.22

0 0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
Nd Timer (s)

Fig. 7 Maximum spatial density against number of downlink sub- Fig. 8 Maximum spatial density against the value of Timer imple-
channels of OFDMA network implementing IVHO and DHHO menting IVHO and DHHO schemes, in which v = 1 m/s,
schemes, in which v = 1 m/s, Timer = 0.5 s, Nu ? Nd = 20 Nd = Nu = 10

are needed. For IVHO scheme, MTs have to handover to

8
OFDMA network immediately once the optical channel is IVHO
blocked. Hence, MTs have more opportunities to access to DHHO
Average vertical handover number
7.5
the OFDMA network and larger Nd is needed to obtain the
same spatial density as DHHO scheme. In DHHO scheme, 7
the setting of Timer makes MTs tend to dwell in the VLC
network, which can support faster transmission and provide 6.5
higher user spatial density.
In Fig. 8, the maximum spatial density of VLC-HetNet 6

against the Timer are simulated. Obviously, the system

performance of IVHO scheme is independent of Timer.
While, for DHHO scheme, the MTs tend not to make a
vertical handover immediately, but rather to delay a certain
duration. When the value of Timer is larger than the period
of crossing the overlapped area, no vertical handover is
needed (e.g., Timer = 2 s). Under this scenario, the max-
imum spatial density depends on the number of time slots
available in the VLC hotspots. As shown in Fig. 8, the
setting of Timer could avoid unnecessary vertical handover
from VLC to OFDMA network and hence, the system
capacity of DHHO scheme is larger than IVHO scheme.
5.3 Average vertical handover number
and downlink dwelling time ratio of VLC
network
Figure 9 shows the average vertical handover number
during one MT passes all the VLC hotspots versus the
velocity of MT with Nu = Nd = 10, q = 0.3 s-1 m-2,
L = 6 and Timer = 0.5 s. The average vertical handover
number of DHHO scheme is less than the one of IVHO
scheme, which is due to the avoidance of the unnecessary
frequent handovers. With v increases, the MTs may prob-
ably cross several VLC hotspots and the overlapped area in
5.5
5
4.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
v(m/s)
Fig. 9 Average vertical handover number against the velocity of MT
implementing IVHO and DHHO schemes, in which Nu = Nd = 10,
q = 0.3 s-1 m-2, L = 6, Timer = 0.5 s
a short period. However, the successful access probability
to the VLC or OFDMA network decreases because the
vertical handover failed when the access time required is
larger than the dwelling time of VLC or OFDMA network
and hence, it results in reducing the successful vertical
handover probability. Due to that, the VLC dwelling time
ratio of IVHO scheme also reduces as shown in Fig. 10.
Frequent vertical handover makes the VLC dwelling ratio
of the IVHO scheme be less than the one of DHHO
scheme. As the overlapped length lo is 2 m, the duration
time of MT in this overlapped area is described as lo/v = 2/
v (s). When v increases, the value of 2/v decreases to
approach the setting of Timer and VLC dwelling time ratio

123

1 University (No. 11JDG130) and the Open Research Fund of National
0.9
VLC dwelling time ratio
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
v(m/s)
Fig. 10 VLC dwelling time ratio against the velocity of MT
implementing IVHO and DHHO schemes, in which Nu = Nd = 10,
q = 0.3 s-1 m-2, Timer = 0.5 s
increases (e.g., DHHO scheme with 1 m/s \ v \ 4 m/s).
While it means that the MT delays a duration of Timer
(now it is still in VLC network) and trigger a vertical
handover to OFDMA network because the MT has not
entered another hotspot when Timer runs out. However,
when 2/v is less than Timer, the horizontal handover from
one hotspot to another always occurs. Large velocity drops
the successful access probability of the MT to VLC net-
work. The MT has to handover to the OFDMA network
which makes the VLC dwelling ratio decrease. Seen from
Fig. 10, the proposed DHHO scheme tends to make MTs
stay in the VLC network as much as possible and it will
offload the crowed RF network.
6 Conclusion
In order to solve the spectrum crisis in the RF wireless
communications, we have developed a new integrated
system: VLC-HetNet with its corresponding access and
handover protocols which can ensure the continuity of
service when MT moves. Furthermore, the simulation
results show that large improvements are achieved in
capacity performance of the VLC-HetNet, when compared
to the pure RF system. Besides, the average vertical han-
dover number and the VLC downlink dwelling time ratio
has been analysed and simulated when the user motion
model is considered.
Acknowledgments This work is supported by National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61502210 and 61571211),
the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No.
BK20130530), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No.
2015M570484), Programs of Senior Talent Foundation of Jiangsu
123
Wireless Netw
DHHO,L=10
IVHO,L=10 Mobile Communications Research Laboratory, Southeast University
DHHO,L=6 (Nos. 2013D01 and 2013D08).
IVHO,L=6
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20. Gross, D., Shortle, J., Thompson, J., & Harris, C. (2008). Fun- Kong in 2008 and 2009. Now
damentals of queueing theory (4th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley. she is a Professor of Nanjing
21. Goldsmith, A. (2005). Wireless communications (1st ed.). Cam- University of Posts and
bridge: Cambridge University Press. Telecommunications. Her
research interests include wire-
less networks, wireless access
Xu Bao received the B. E. technology, as well as cognitive
degree and the M. E. degree radio communications.
from Jiangsu University in 2003
and 2006, respectively, both in
Communication Engineering.
He received the Ph.D. degree
from the National Mobile
Communications Research
Laboratory in Jun. 2011,
Southeast University, Nanjing,
China. From Nov. 2013 to Nov.
2014, he worked as a post-doc-
tor in Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA.
He is an Associate Professor
with the School of Computer Science and Communication Engi-
neering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China. His research interests
include visible light communications, wireless network design and
heterogeneous network.

Jisheng Dai received the

B.Eng. degree in electronic
engineering from the Nanjing
University of Technology,
Nanjing, China, in 2005, and the
Ph.D. degree in information and
communication engineering
from the University of Science
and Technology of China,
Hefei, China, in 2010. He was a
Research Assistant with the
Department of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering,
University of Hong Kong, Hong
Kong, in 2009. He is currently
an Associate Professor with the School of Electrical and Information

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